Rights, obligations and the public sphere: Arguments and options for securing just policies for young people

2002 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Judith Bessant
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Primary Reason ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Dominant Narratives

Children and young people have too easily been subjected to state-sponsored mistreatment and neglect. One primary reason for the discriminatory and often hostile conduct directed at them by agencies ostensibly established to promote their welfare is that they have been ‘constructed’ as dangerous and ‘antisocial’, or as dependent, incompetent and naïve. A key aim of this article is to promote discussion about the significance of children's and young people's status as a key determinant of policies which routinely override their basic rights. The article argues that attention needs to be given to how child and youth policies can be developed more securely within a justice framework.I argue that, if we are serious about developing both just policies and ethical relationships with young people, we need to recognise the role played by dominant narratives about young people in shaping policies. Once this is achieved, attention can then be directed towards how those identities might be contested and reconstructed. I offer a number of suggestions for securing ethical treatment of young people which includes respecting them as fully-fledged human beings and citizens. I argue that challenging common-sense understandings of young people as dependent, not fully intellectually or morally competent, etc, can inform policies in ways that secure young people's entitlements as full citizens. In particular one way of challenging popular views about young people is to increase their involvement in the public sphere. The fact that most young people cannot currently claim rights for themselves directly is no reason for denying them. Indeed it is a good reason for securing mechanisms for monitoring those who have children in their care and to intervene to put those rights into effect. I also make a case for embedding young people's rights into an account of obligations that can be used to secure respectful and just conduct on the part of older people who have young people in their care.

Children's Participation in Brazil – A Brief Genealogy and Recent Innovations

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Udi Mandel Butler
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Popular Education ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Mass Participation

AbstractThis paper provides an overview of significant developments in Brazil in regard to children and young people's rights and participation in the public sphere. The paper addresses the importance of historically contextualizing particular practices and policies towards children and young people, in order to understand present manifestations of their "participation". Outlining the Brazilian context of deep inequality, the paper reflects how different childhoods, that of the rich and of the poor, have been differently categorised and acted upon. The paper goes on to give an account of the important movements of mass participation that emerged through the 1970s, in particular those concerning Popular Education, that sought to dismantle repressive institutions and relationships within the country, including those towards the children of the poorest sectors of the population. Important here is the influence of Brazilian pedagogue and activist Paulo Freire, whose ideas around 'conscientization' and their subsequent impact on participatory practices with children and young people are also addressed. The paper concludes with a brief overview of recent research on the multiple spaces of participation young people are engaged in, offering some possible avenues for future research.

Im Archiv der Öffentlichkeit

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Maresch
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Oder Eine ◽  
The Public ◽  
Postal Services ◽  
The Public Sphere

Durch den digitalen Medienwandel ist der Begriff der Öffentlichkeit problematisch geworden. Die Debatte fokussiert sich zumeist auf die Frage, ob die sogenannte bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit durch das Internet im Niedergang begriffen ist oder eine Intensivierung und Pluralisierung erfährt. Rudolf Maresch zeichnet die berühmte Untersuchung der Kategorie durch Jürgen Habermas nach und zieht den von ihm konstatierten Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit in Zweifel. Dagegen verweist er auf die gouvernementalen und medialen Prozesse, die jede Form von Kommunikation immer schon gesteuert haben. Öffentlichkeit sei daher ein Epiphänomen nicht allein des Zeitungswesens, sondern der bereits vorgängig ergangenen postalischen Herstellung einer allgemeinen Adressierbarkeit von Subjekten. Heute sei Öffentlichkeit innerhalb der auf Novitäts- und Erregungskriterien abstellenden Massenmedien ein mit anderen Angeboten konkurrierendes Konzept. Mercedes Bunz konstatiert ebenfalls eine Ausweitung und Pluralisierung von Öffentlichkeit durch den digitalen Medienwandel, sieht aber die entscheidenden Fragen in der Konzeption und Verteilung von Evaluationswissen und Evaluationsmacht. Nicht mehr die sogenannten Menschen, sondern Algorithmen entscheiden über die Verbreitung und Bewertung von Nachrichten. Diese sind in der Öffentlichkeit – die sie allererst erzeugen – weitgehend verborgen. Einig sind sich die Autoren darin, dass es zu einer Pluralisierung von Öffentlichkeiten gekommen ist, während der Öffentlichkeitsbegriff von Habermas auf eine singuläre Öffentlichkeit abstellt. </br></br>Due to the transformation of digital media, the notion of “publicity” has become problematic. In most cases, the debate is focused on the question whether the internet causes a decline of so-called civic publicity or rather intensifies and pluralizes it. Rudolf Maresch outlines Jürgen Habermas's famous study of this category and challenges his claim concerning its “structural transformation,” referring to the governmental and medial processes which have always already controlled every form of communication. Publicity, he claims, is an epiphenomenon not only of print media, but of a general addressability of subjects, that has been produced previously by postal services. Today, he concludes, publicity is a concept that competes with other offers of mass media, which are all based on criteria of novelty and excitement. Mercedes Bunz also notes the expansion and pluralization of the public sphere due to the change of digital media, but sees the crucial issues in the design and distribution of knowledge and power by evaluation. So-called human beings no longer decide on the dissemination and evaluation of information, but algorithms, which are for the most part concealed from the public sphere that they produce in the first place. Both authors agree that a pluralization of public sphere(s) has taken place, while Habermas's notion of publicity refers to a single public sphere.

Neotoponymy, Appropriation of Space and Youth Political Expression in Tokombéré, Northern Cameroon (1970–2011)

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110638
Author(s):  
Baskouda S.K. Shelley
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Social Field ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
The Public ◽  
Northern Cameroon ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
A Site

Using the example of neotoponyms proliferation in Tokombéré (Northern Cameroon) between 1970 and 2011, this paper questions the banal tactics of naming places as a site of public patriarchy contestation. In fact, young people play a crucial role in reinventing local political power forms of interpellation, which enables them to symbolically reappropriate the space. This helps to establish their presence in the public sphere from which they have been side-lined by social elders. Even though it reflects a political expression, the fact remains that the attribution of toponyms does not really help to reverse their domination into social field.

scholarly journals Początki kształtowania się reprezentacji społecznej zapożyczeń w sferze publicznej

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Piotr Zbróg
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Way

The beginnings of the shaping of social representations of borrowings in the public sphereThe article presents an initial phase of the process of shaping of social representations of borrowings. The aim was to obtain a view of the way in which participants of the public sphere talked about these elements of language, how they perceived them as well as what common sense image was created on this basis in the communication sphere and how it was modified. The first judgements and opinions on the matter of foreign words appeared around the 16th century and evolved from that moment. The theory of social representations developed by Serge Moscovici was applied as a theoretical and methodological basis of the description. Its research tools allow us to see the way in which societies construct meanings of matters important to them. On the basis of the analysis of the material it was established that from the beginning there were rather antagonistic elements of social representations of borrowings. The functionality of borrowings was noticed. Yet it was postulated that they should be eliminated from texts on account of the necessity to develop the native language, the incomprehensibility of statements as well as the excessive trend of foreignness.

Liminal Participation: Young People’s Practices in the Public Sphere Between Exclusion, Claims of Belonging, and Democratic Innovation

2021 ◽  
pp. 0044118X2110408
Author(s):  
Ilaria Pitti ◽  
Yagmur Mengilli ◽  
Andreas Walther
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Youth Participation ◽  
European Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Innovation And Change

Existing understandings of youth participation often imply clear distinctions from non-participation and thus boundaries between “recognized” and “non-recognized” practices of engagement. This article aims at questioning these boundaries. It analyzes young people’s practices in the public sphere that are characterized by both recognition as participation and misrecognition or stigmatization as deviant and it is suggested to conceptualize such practices as “liminal participation.” The concept of liminality has been developed to describe transitory situations “in-between”—between defined and recognized status positions—and seems helpful for better understanding the blurring boundaries of youth participation. Drawing on qualitative case studies conducted within a European research project, the analysis focuses on how young people whose practices evolve at the margins of the respective societies position themselves with regard to the challenges of liminality and on the potential of this for democratic innovation and change.

Battles of Ideas Between the Legal and the Legitimate

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Paula Castro ◽  
Sonia Brondi ◽  
Alberta Contarello
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Many

This chapter discusses how social psychology can offer theoretical contributions for a better understanding of the relations between the institutional and public spheres and how this may impact change in ecological matters. First, it introduces the difference between natural and agreed—or chosen—limits to human action and draws on Sophocles’s Antigone to illustrate this and discuss how legitimacy has roots in the many heterogeneous values of the public sphere/consensual universe, while legality arises from the institutional/reified sphere. Recalling some empirical research in the area of social studies of sustainability, it then shows how a social representations perspective can help us understand the dynamic and interdependent relations between the institutional or reified sphere and the consensual or common sense universe—and their implications for social change and continuity.

Taalgebruik op de Werkplek

1996 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
Agnes Verbiest
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Communication Training ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Male/female communication training offered by enterprises to their company executives starts mostly from common sense ideas about sex-based differences in language use. The corresponding guidelines for women as newcomers in the public sphere as well as for men, often derived from one or more out of three well known theories, are shown to necessarily lead to deceptions because of their gender blindness. A gender approach to differences in language use between men and women cannot produce direct guidelines for language users but may help them to benefit from the fact that all language users, newcomers included, are norm subjects in interaction.

The uninterrupted life is not worth living: On religious education and the public sphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Biesta ◽  
Patricia Hannam
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Existential Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this paper we explore the relationship between religious education and the public sphere, suggesting that religious education, if it takes its educational remit seriously, has to be orientated towards the public sphere where human beings exist together in and with the world. Rather than seeing religion as propositional belief, we argue for an existential approach that focuses on the question as to what it means to exist religiously. We offer educational and theological arguments for our position and, along both lines, seek to (re)connect religion and religious education to the idea of democracy.

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